Wednesday, April 25, 2012

My name is Nader and I’m the webmaster for cjmdefense.com. I would love to contribute an article to your site. The content is entirely unique and will not be posted anywhere else.

If this sounds interesting to you I'd love to hear back from you!

Sincerely,
Nader Ahmadnia

Bloggers get requests for guest posts all the time. It's part of the game. Let someone post on your blog (with a link of course) so they can inflate their own hits. It's the typical scumbag marketing tactic that dirtbag marketers like to use to help their clients raise their profile on Google.

I never allow guest posts from these pieces of shit. None of the "real" bloggers I know do either.

So I went to cjmdefense.com to see what it was all about. It's Christopher J. McCann's website. He has a blog, but there's not much going on there. He's a 12 year lawyer and has all the right things - nice photo, payment plans, free consultation, "call me directly," "commitment to personal service," all that good stuff.

I just wonder why Chris has hired someone to go find lawyers and try to sell himself on their blogs. Can't he send his own email, or "call directly?" Where's the "personal service" Chris. Chris?

I have a webmaster, he's the guy that I pay monthly to "host" my website. He's never offered to send out emails to other lawyers and bloggers and offer to guest post, and I've never thought of having him be a marketer for me. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. When I want to start a relationship with another lawyer, I usually call, or send my own email. Maybe I need to have my webmaster try and create fake relationships with other bloggers for me so I can be more popular on your computer monitor.

The goal of Chris McCann and his webmaster Nader is to leave a lasting impression with other lawyers and bloggers.

Chris McCann, you've definitely left a lasting impression with me.

Definitely.

Anonymous comments are welcome as long as they say something relevant and half-way intelligent and arent a vehicle for a coward to attack someone. I trust you understand.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

10 comments:

I got the same email, so I contacted Nader. Quite the interesting fellow, lost both his parents when police executed a warrant on the wrong home and slaughtered everyone inside, including the puppies, except him. Wandered the streets until he was placed in a foster home after saving a baby from a burning building.

He struggled to learn computers while working 10 hours a day feeding the homeless. Even today, he works tirelessly to help those who pay him a meager fee, which he donates to AIDS research, by trying to go above and beyond in serving their interests.

I am a criminal defense attorney in southern California and I just have to say that I know Chris personally. He's a great lawyer, has always been very helpful and friendly to a young lawyer like me, and is actually one of the more ethical attorneys I've ever been around. I do understand the obvious concern with outsourcing marketing in this way, and I plan on bringing this blog to his attention. But I do want to defend him here, because I don't think the use of this type of blog sharing/linking is necessarily a negative and/or unethical practice. It can be, of course, but I believe as long as the information is accurate and personally approved by the lawyer who has his/her name on the site, I don't see the harm. And knowing Chris, I highly doubt he would allow any unethical practices to take place under his name.

How nice of you Scott B. You claim to be a fellow lawyer coming here on behalf of Chris but are unwilling to state your full name? Why is that? Did someone tell you it's a bad idea to tell anyone who you are when defending a friend?

And I understand your position, it's the position of many young lawyers today - "it's not unethical so why should anyone be critical?"

If you "believe as long as the information is accurate and personally approved by the lawyer who has his/her name on the site," that it's ok to have Nader pimping your law practice, then maybe he's due for a new client like yourself.

Yep, follow the rules, and anything else is OK. Find the lowest common denominator. If it's legal, it's good to go.

I never said what Chris was doing was unethical. It's not. It's just garbage. It's cheesy. It's cheap, and it's unworthy of a member of the Bar - in my opinion of course. Or what is it they say these days, IMHO?

I was not going to respond to you here, but when I see that you have insulted someone that unbeknownst to me has tried to stick up for me, I felt it necessary to explain myself.

It is clear you misunderstood the offer that my (now former) webmaster was putting forth. Firstly, any content in the articles he offered was mine. As a busy attorney, and not as web savvy as other professionals, I am not aware of all of the avenues in which I can get my content published. Nader simply sought out places he felt would be receptive to my content. I don't know why you took such offense towards him or me for making such an offer. You simply could have said "no" and moved on. Or contact me to discuss it. I trusted him to take the time that I don't have to approach other professionals such as yourself, assuming that you would respond appropriately. I was mistaken in my assumption.

It seems you were more interested in just making some point about unethical marketing practices and needed an example. The problem is, you chose the wrong example.

You would be the exception among web marketing professionals who thinks one should not seek to publish content on outside sources.

Nor do I think you are in the majority of persons who think it is unethical to hire someone to find places to publish the content they authored if they don't have the time or know how to locate such sources.

I do know who Scott B. is. At least I am pretty sure because I only know one other attorney with that name and last initial "B". He is a local lawyer, and a very good one, who knows me well. It should be obvious why he doesn't want to (or have to) use his last name when it appears you are only interested in putting down anyone you don't know who disagrees with you. Scott is a great lawyer whom I respect immensely. I liken your response to him as that of a "bully." For a lawyer to behave that way is . I'm surprised to see an experienced lawyer behave so immaturely, and unprofessionally towards another.

Also, you know nothing about me as a lawyer, so I fail to understand how you equate my conduct with being "unworthy of a member of the Bar." You just come off as a bully, and failed miserably to make some sort of point about web marketing.

Perhaps you should have simply contacted me directly when this happened and discussed it with me as one professional to another, rather than hurl insults from behind your computer.

I actually left a message at your office last year after hours after this blog post came to my attention. You never returned my call. If you are so concerned by what I have done, call me. My number is: (949) 596-0060. All calls are personally answered by me.

If you really still have a problem with this, call me anytime. But stop hurling insults at me or my colleagues for no reason. It just makes you look bad.

By the way, I appreciate people who are willing to disagree with me, even those that like to use the misplaced word "bully" because they can't accept that their cheesy way of marketing their practice is pitiful to other lawyers.